Traveling exhibit of empty boots symbolizes lives lost to war

By VANESSA HO, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Updated 10:00 pm, Friday, April 8, 2005

After Joe Blickenstaff died in Iraq, his older brother inherited his Army-issued, sand-colored boots. They didn't hold up well in Washington's rain and cold, and they were too small, but Blickenstaff's brother wore them anyway.

"You do strange things when you miss someone," said their sister, Stacy Livingston.

For her, the boots were a powerful symbol of a beloved life cut short and a reason she plans to speak at an exhibit that uses that power to illustrate the horror of war.

Today, the traveling exhibit "Eyes Wide Open," of roughly 3,000 empty combat boots and civilian shoes, makes its way to Seattle Center for a two-day run.

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Started by the Quaker group American Friends Service Committee, the exhibit began in January 2004 with 500 boots in Chicago, as a "way to put a human face on the losses of the Iraq war," said Susan Segall, regional director of the American Friends Service Committee in the Pacific Northwest.

Since then, the exhibit has made 56 stops across the country and swelled to 1,544 combat boots, each tagged with the name of a soldier who died in Iraq. It also includes roughly the same number of civilian shoes -- children's sandals, women's pumps, men's loafers -- to highlight the human cost to Iraqis.

"When you see a sea of boots before you, it makes the numbers real. You feel compelled to imagine the numbers of people that could have been standing in those boots," Segall said.

From Central Park in New York to the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., the boots have often been laid out like tombstones, prompting people to slowly absorb the names and weep. Many grieving family members have left behind photos, poems, letters, essays and flags. In Portland, the boots filled up the pews of a large church.

An army surplus store donated most of the boots, but a few belonged to soldiers who died in Iraq. The civilian shoes, which represent a fraction of the Iraqi death toll, also were donated.

The exhibit has angered the local group Operation Support Our Troops, which says organizers did not get permission from families to use the names of loved ones killed in Iraq. The group calls the exhibit "anti-war" and accuses organizers of using the names to raise money.

And although the names are publicly available through the Defense Department, the group is petitioning state Attorney General Rob McKenna to stop organizers from using the names of soldiers whose families have not consented.

Segall said the exhibit is not a fund-raiser nor an anti-war protest.

"We see 'Eyes Wide Open' ... as a pro-peace exhibit that honors the many loses of this war, which says those losses are too high, and we, as a people, shouldn't accept such losses." One of the best ways to humanize the cost is to share the names, she said. Livingston, whose brother died in December 2003, has not seen the exhibit but commended it as a way to honor the fallen.

"I hope that people who see this exhibit can understand what each pair of shoes or boots represent. It was a life. It had hopes and dreams. That is no more," said Livingston, who belongs to the anti-Iraq war groups Military Families Speak Out and Gold Star Families for Peace. "For every pair of shoes, there are a hundred more people that are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, and whose families are hurting and missing them."

Her younger brother joined the Army shortly after getting his GED and deciding that his nursing home job wasn't for him. He also figured it was a good way to pay the rent. A gunner with the Stryker Brigade at Fort Lewis, he told his family, before he was deployed, that he didn't believe in the war.

"He ... said he thought there had to be a better way," said Livingston, 27, of Blaine. But in addition to loving his wife, family and guitar, he had also loved his country.

He drowned during a routine combat patrol, when the vehicle he was in fell down a collapsed embankment and into a rain-swollen canal. He was 23.